series: Core Values

title: four:community

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: October 15, 2017

scriptures: 1 Peter 2:4-5, Psalm 133, Ephesians 2:19-22

Everyone at the core of who they are has many of the same basic desires and needs… and from a relational sense, what everybody longs for, whether they frame it this way or not, is they long to be:

fully known

accepted for who you are

and needed where you are.

but to actually achieve all three takes an incredible amount of intention on the part of everyone in the community.

it is very easy to be accepted, if you aren’t fully know.

Which is where most of our world lives… in the “accepted” realm, but not necessarily for “who you are” as much as for “who you have projected to be”

But You don’t cultivate a community like this by simply airing your dirty laundry every chance that you get. Transparency is vital to any healthy community, BUT The mark of a healthy community is not so much that it is a place of complete openness, where everyone knows every detail of everyones lives… (though we all need trusted people in our lives, who do!)

instead…

a healthy community is marked by its commitment to each other.

IT IS commitment that keeps someone by your side when you ARE open with them, and they find out the things that are buried in your closet that you wished nobody could ever find out about…

it is commitment that keeps someone in your life after they have seen you at your worst.

but if you have transparency WITHOUT commitment, you will have an absolute mess on your hands… you will have gossip… you will have people taking sides against other people… you will have fractions like Paul talks about when he writes the Corinthians.

True, Biblical commitment to the body takes so much intention… it takes determination that says “I love the church, and the gospel so much, that I am going to be the one that keeps this thing together…” -

what it takes is ownership.

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Character means that We live publicly like we do in private. We write the Word of God on our hearts, practice generosity, and prioritize integrity.

Commission means that we are a sending church. We honor the past, while we work for the future. And we always believe that everyone’s brightest days are ahead of them.

connection is living a life of constant community with God.

He is our supplier, who is as close to us as the air that we breathe.

conversation means that we bind and we loose together, we learn together, we serve together, and we grow together.

We welcome each other’s perspectives, and we depend on each other’s accountability.

collaboration is all of us working together to create something better than any of us could create on our own.

Contribution understands that everybody has a role, and there is room for us here. We know that the gifts we are given matter to the body of Christ, and we so seek to discover where we each fit.

We honor the contributions of others, knowing that God perfectly crafted each one of us, and only together are we truly the church.

Community is a body, committed to all its parts.

Compassion sees the world through the eyes of others, and it is stirred to action by what it sees. It can not sit by while injustice is done around it.

communion is a common union of broken people, who are made whole by the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We are united by our differences, and there is a seat for everyone at the table.

Courage goes to the places that nobody else wants to go, and works to create places that everybody wants to be. Courage loves the one who nobody else wants to love…

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